"Night Witches" (German: die Nachthexen; Russian: Ночные ведьмы, Nochnyye Vedmy) was a World War II German nickname for the all-female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment (Russian: 588-й ночной легкобомбардировочный авиационный полк, romanized: 588-y nochnoy legkobombardirovochnyy aviatsionnyy polk), known later as the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Red Banner and Order of Suvorov Regiment (46-й гвардейский ночной бомбардировочный авиационный Таманский Краснознамённый и ордена Суворова полк, 46-y gvardeyskiy nochnoy bombardirovochnyy aviatsionnyy Tamanskiy Krasnoznamonnyy i ordena Suvorova polk), of the Soviet Air Forces.

The regiment, formed by Raskova and led by Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, was composed primarily of female volunteers in their late teens and early twenties.

[2] An attack technique of the night bombers involved idling the engine near the target and gliding to the bomb-release point with only wind noise left to reveal their presence.

In October 1941, Major Marina Raskova was granted authority to select candidates for the 122nd Composite Air Group, an all-female aviation regiment.

[13] Although the aircraft was obsolete and slow, the pilots took advantage of its exceptional maneuverability; it also had a maximum speed that was lower than the stalling speed of both the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, which made it very difficult for German pilots to shoot down, with the exception of fighter ace Josef Kociok, who grounded the regiment for an entire night by shooting down three or four of their planes on the night of 31 July – 1 August 1943.

[14][15][16][17] Members of the regiment were deployed from the Engels Military Aviation School to the Southern Front as part of the 218th Division of the 4th Air Army on 23 May 1942, where they arrived on 27 May.

[18] Throughout the course of the war the regiment accumulated approximately 23,672 sorties in combat, including in the following battles:[9] In total the regiment collectively accumulated 28,676 flight hours, dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs and over 26,000 incendiary shells, damaging or completely destroying 17 river crossings, nine railways, two railway stations, 26 warehouses, 12 fuel depots, 176 armored cars, 86 firing points, and 11 searchlights.

[19][20] Senior Engineer Sofiya Ozerkova destroyed her party card [ru] in case of capture during a retreat from an encircled airbase after she had chosen to stay behind to deny the German Army a Po-2 undergoing repairs.

She refused to appeal the sentence as a show of loyalty to the party, but was later acquitted after the political commissar attached to the unit intervened on her behalf.

[21] Mechanics Raisa Kharitonova and Tamara Frolova were sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for dismantling a flare (used by navigators to illuminate bombing targets) and using the small silk parachutes to sew undergarments.